Thursday, 6 December 2012

Roses

What is most painful is knowing how vivid those final images
must be for her. I sat in the field hospital beside her and watched thoughts
ripple and break across her forehead. She will remember holding my hand at the
market and the air raid siren howling like a woken baby and each thudding
footstep tripping and stumbling over the darkness through the rose gardens
where we had stopped to pick flowers and everything is smeared in a teary
snot-clogged paste that catches in her throat. She will remember the swastikas
watching from the windows along the Bautzner Straße as the night roared and
flickered and we heard the thumping of giant’s footsteps. She has lived in the
house we broke into. She has painted dust on the steps to that wine cellar and
vineyards on the blood red bottles and when the bomb hit she saw the light
shining off the splintered glass like rain.

When the doctors saw that her
eyes were irreparable they sought to discharge her immediately but I convinced
them to let her stay one night. Each hour she awoke and each hour I told her
was the morning of a new day.

I began to believe myself. It was
strange to see the darkness turn to grey then to know the sun could rise after
the world has ended.

In the morning I led her between
the rows of camp beds that lined the old warehouse. We stood outside so she
could feel the February sun.

“Where are my roses?” she said.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I dropped
them. But we can pick more.”

She was silent. Her head pointed
at her shoes.

“A letter arrived from daddy
while you were asleep,” I said.

“Really?” she said. “What did he
say?”

“He said we pushed the Soviets
out of Budapest. He says the
Soviets are falling back like they have always done.”

She began to cry. She cried until
blood appeared in her bandage. I placed my arms around her shoulders and held
her head to my chest.

“I want daddy home,” she said.

“Daddy will be home soon,” I
said. “You have me. We’re going home.”

“Ok,” she said.

I took her hand and we walked
into the street.

“What do you see?” she said.

“I see the Bautzner Straße. I see
the beer hall and it is open and there are men drinking and laughing in the
street and waving flags. There are flags up and down the street. They know Germany
is a strong proud country. They’ve heard about our victory in Budapest.
They know the Fuhrer was right: ‘our unbreakable will and our capabilities will
allow us to prevail.’ The sweet shop is closed but there are children playing
hopscotch in the street. They are using debris as stones. Some houses were hit
with bombs but there are Hitler Youth repairing them.”

“Really?”

“I’m your brother. I wouldn’t
lie.”

“Tell me more.”

“And the rose gardens. The roses
have bloomed. They are turning their heads to watch the sun.”

She loved to pick flowers from
the rose gardens. She would wait until there was no-one around and take daddy’s
scissors from her coat. She would spend hours arranging the roses into the vase
on her window sill.